Sunday, January 31, 2010

So I’m working on my latest painting. Not getting anywhere helpful. First I painted the background with golds and browns like in Joan Miro’s self-portrait. Then I added paint in gesture-like strokes – reds, yellows and black. Then I covered it with gesso applied with a palette knife. Then I thought it should be darker overall so I added two glazes – one umber and the other ochre. Then I stepped back and looked at it and decided it was too brown.

So then I added a bright blue stripe. Now I hate it. What do I do next? Pitch it? Add more stripes? Gesso?

I should have taken Francesca’s suggestion to photograph it along the way. Now I’m stuck with a bright blue stripe I'm not sure what to do next. Maybe I should just move on to something else. I'm sure it will come to me eventually...

To bring you up to speed… In the summer of 2009 I worked on this painting:

Woven. Oil on canvas. 24x30.

And in December 2009, this one:

Pastels. Acrylic on canvas. 18x24.

Working in acrylics for the first time was a thrill. I found that I can use the same thick body of paint and achieve a similar blending of colors using the same techniques I used with oil paints – only I could work a lot faster. This has enabled me to turn out many paintings fairly quickly. In January 2010 I finished 8 paintings! I have been working on the Joan Miro striper series taken from color class. The first one I did in the fall of 2009:

Painting. Acrylic on canvas. 16x16.

The other four I did in January 2010:

Harlequin’s Carnival. Acrylic on canvas. 16x16.

Constellation. Acrylic on canvas. 16x16.

Rooster. Acrylic on canvas. 16x16.

Hand Holding a Bird. Acrylic on canvas. 16x16.

My next adventure was to explore texture through the use of gesso applied with a palette knife. Here are the three I did in that vein: